Martin Memorial Health Systems opened a fitness center last week at the Port St. Lucie Community Center, replacing another in that location run by its rival, HCA Inc.

The center, which is located at 2195 S.E. Airoso Blvd, opened Thursday.

HCA, a national corporation with two hospitals in St. Lucie County, ran a fitness center in the city-owned building for years, but told city officials in November that it would be closed because of budget cuts. They reversed course after Martin Memorial made a pitch to move into the site.

The city council voted to accept Martin Memorial’s proposal. (more…)

PORT ST. LUCIE — St. Lucie Medical Center has received the highest designation for excellence in nursing from The American Nurses Credentialing Center.

The HCA Inc.-owned hospital is the first on the Treasure Coast to get the prestigious Magnet Designation and the 23rd in the state.

The ANCC, of Silver Spring, Md., gives the designation to health care organizations that demonstrate the highest quality in nursing practices and adherence to national standards. (more…)

Just call it another economic carrot.

A couple weeks after the Port St. Lucie City Council lured a major motion picture and video game animation studio to the Treasure Coast with $51.8 million in economic incentives, St. Lucie County announced that it had done the same with a company that makes medical products.

This time, the carrot is a tad smaller.

County commissioners, using the secretive title “Project Can Do,” approved a package in August that allows Health-Chem Diagnostics LLC, of Pompano Beach, not to pay property taxes or rent for 10 years — a value of about $2.3 million — in exchange for opening a $27 million facility in Fort Pierce. The site will employ about 160 people, with an average annual salary of $60,000, during the next five years. (more…)

WASHINGTON, D.C. — A highly anticipated federal investigation of Chinese drywall is expected to be released today, and it could be worth thousands of dollars for affected homeowners.

That’s because the report may trigger the availability of federal funds that affected homeowners could use to lessen their losses, according to a spokesman for Sen. Bill Nelson, D-Fla. “We certainly want to wrap up this investigation,” said Bryan Gulley, a Nelson spokesman. “People need answers.”

Scott Wolfson, a spokesman for the U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission, which is overseeing the investigation, said the study of 51 homes “is part of our commitment to affected families and Congress to share scientific data as soon as it becomes available.”
(more…)

PORT ST. LUCIE — City Hall critic Dave Mittler is demanding City Councilwoman Michelle Berger publicly apologize for calling him and his former neighbor, John Methvin, “professional anarchists” during a Sept. 28 City Council meeting.

The issue has Mayor Patricia Christensen reassessing how City Council meetings are conducted.

Mittler’s call for an apology comes after Methvin called the City Council office about two weeks ago demanding Berger apologize for making the remark or he would show up at the next council meeting with “guns loaded,” a statement he later said was a figure of speech.
(more…)

PORT ST. LUCIE — The City Council voted 4-1 at its Monday night meeting to move forward with making Midway Road the dividing line between the city and Fort Pierce.

But officials have just begun ironing out the details regarding utilities and annexations in the joint planning agreement.

The council agreed to assign Midway Road from the Indian River Lagoon to the St. Lucie County Fairgrounds as the boundary. Councilwoman Michelle Berger had requested at the council’s Oct. 19 meeting a follow-up discussion about the joint planning agreement for services north of Midway Road.

“I’m quite comfortable putting a line at Midway Road,” Berger said.
(more…)

Port St. Lucie Civic Center

Mayor Patricia Christensen called it the “beginning of a new era.”

Since its opening, though, the $25 million facility has had more success as a recreation center than as the economic anchor of a burgeoning “downtown” in a city built without one.

Its surrounding streets, with names such as Progress Lane and Main Street, are flanked by empty fields.

Its rental facilities have been used 180 times. Rental rates were cut in half late last month.

“The whole idea for this was to stimulate the development of a downtown and obviously the economy has had an effect on that,” said Chuck Proulx, the city’s parks and recreation director.
(more…)

TALLAHASSEE — Two safeguards on a secretive process that turns tax dollars into cash incentives for private corporations were quietly removed in the final days of the 2009 legislative session to help a Jupiter Island investment manager quickly secure $20 million for his digital animation company.

An amendment gave Gov. Charlie Crist’s office, which helped craft the language, sole authority to award $42 million in economic development money. As a result, nine companies, each identified only by a code name, were awarded shares of the money within a week this summer. One $7.4 million project in Taylor County was never discussed in public.

Nearly half of the summer’s total went to Project Bumblebee — a proposal from John Textor, who is targeting Port St. Lucie for a spinoff of Digital Domain, a visual effects company he owns with Hollywood blockbuster producer Michael Bay.

Textor has promised that the spinoff, Wyndcrest Holdings, will create 500 jobs by 2014, and the recession-ravaged city is considering a separate incentive package worth $10 million in cash, land in Tradition and additional stimulus money from the city and St. Lucie County for a building.

But while the city considers its offer, the last-minute state budget amendment has already benefited the election campaigns of Crist and state Reps. Kevin Ambler, R-Tampa, and David Rivera, R-Miami, whose support was critical for the amendment.

Just days after the legislative session in May, which ran into overtime as lawmakers squabbled over the budget, Textor gave $5,000 to the Republican Party of Florida’s federal campaign account to help Crist, who has raised more than $6 million for his U.S. Senate race next year.

In June, Textor gathered $2,000 in donations for Ambler and $1,500 for Rivera. Textor also helped arrange for former Miami Dolphins quarterback Dan Marino, one of Textor’s business partners, to attend Ambler’s kickoff fund-raiser last month for Ambler’s state Senate campaign. Textor said he hopes to host a fund-raiser for Ambler in Palm Beach County. (more…)

PORT ST. LUCIE — Motorists should expect slight delays from periodic lane closures on a half-mile section of Becker Road being widened from two to four lanes.

The road will remain open as the city continues the widening project from Paley Court to the interchange at Florida’s Turnpike beginning Monday for the next six months, according to Jim Angstadt, a civil engineer with the city. (more…)

PORT ST. LUCIE Despite final pleas from residents to keep taxes flat, the City Council Monday night voted 4-1 to an 11 percent increase in the property tax rate.

The new tax rate, $4.68 per $1,000 of taxable value, will go into effect Oct. 1.

Vice Mayor Jack Kelly was the lone vote against the increase. Also, the council unanimously agreed to approve a 2009-2010 $431 million budget.

“This 11 percent increase is a compromise,” City Councilwoman Michelle Berger told residents in a packed chambers, noting that she and Kelly tried for a zero increase but could not get support from other council members.
(more…)